Library Confessions: I’m a terrible book talker

September 29, 2017February 23, 2018 - librariantiff 3 Comments

I’ve been feeling a bit ‘meh’ about some things lately, and perhaps putting some library confessions out there might at least make me feel more honest about where I feel I am professionally and what I’m doing to improve myself. With blogging, it’s easy to post only the good things and make it look like you’re a library rock star, but the honest truth is that we all have things that we struggle with professionally. It’s what we do about them that really defines us.

I’ve always felt that one of my shortcomings as a librarian is book talking. I know some teachers and other librarians who are book talking geniuses. I am not one of those people. Back in my elementary days, I could throw down a mean story time. And I feel like I’m great at connecting students with books on a one on one basis. That may be one of the roots of my book talking failures — I prefer to get to know students and their preferences, then recommend books I know they will enjoy. I usually establish those relationships so well that I don’t really have to ‘sell’ the books, I just hand them over and ask students to report back. So over the years, “Here — you’ll like this one,” is kind of the direction where my book talking skills have gone. There’s definitely not much of an art to that — so I’m working on it.

As with most things that I do, I require thought time and preparation to be anywhere decent in my execution of book talks. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those amazing-on-the-spot-book-talk-givers. With all of my middle school and freshmen library orientation/book check-out visits this year, I did a hand full of book talks as well. I went through and pulled a selection of books that I know and love, then I wrote little blurbs on sticky notes to put on the back to use as a guide when I book talked. Of course, I kept all of the stickies, because that was a lot of work!

After two weeks of this, I realized handwritten sticky notes probably weren’t the best long term solution for keeping track of my book talk notes. I’ve since made a Google Form where I’m inputting my notes so I can reprint them on sticky notesÂ and reuse them in the future.

And just for fun, here are some of the books I find myself recommending most often to students:

Do you have any advice to improve book talking skills? Or favorite books that are checked out every time you share them with students?

Interacting with Nonfiction Text

October 27, 2015 - librariantiff 1 Comment

A few weeks ago, in anticipation of my 7th grade library visits, I asked the teachers what a good topic of focus would be for an activity. They said they were working on nonfiction text. In my searching for lesson ideas, I came across a post called Non-Fiction Know-It-Alls on the Create Teach Share blog.

One of these printables was very close to what I was looking for, but not quite. I wanted to have students work in pairs and give them a variety of our nonfiction library books to choose from. They selected a book and completed this Nonfiction Response:

My 6th graders are about to start working on a research project, and I purchased several ebooks on MackinVIA that they will be able to use as references. I wanted the students to have a chance to get familiar with MackinVIA, identify key components that will be used in citing their sources, and also notice the text features and how they help us interpret nonfiction text. I revamped the document again for them:

Both of these activities have been successful. I think taking the time to identify and discuss the text features in nonfictionÂ has been valuable. And I’m really excited to kick off this research project with 6th grade ELA and Social Studies!

PDF of Nonfiction Response

PDF of Nonfiction Evaluation

Collection Development

September 22, 2015 - librariantiff 1 Comment

Since we’ve been back to school this year, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time assessing our collection and planning for improvements this school year. At the end of last year, I ran some reports and compiled some data that kind of surprised me. I would never say that using and leveraging data is a strength of mine; I work more in terms of if things “feel right.” We all know that administrators speak and listen in terms of data — and mine is no exception.

When I looked at annual circulation reports at the end of last year, it was obvious that our circulation has risen dramatically over the last several years. The year with the “dip” was the year of our move from one campus to another, so that was a year of major transition and I understand that trend in the data fully. I attribute a great deal of our circulation increase to both genrefication and implementing our self check-out procedure.

Right before our move, I finished the process of ditching Dewey. That process included EXTENSIVE weeding of our collection. Since then, I really hadn’t done much weeding. When books were returned at the end of last year, I noticed that our collection was starting to look a little sad. These books are circulation often and being read by many students. After the first rounds of library visits and book check-out this year, the shelves were just looking sad. Our students are readers, as evidenced by our circulation numbers. I also knew that quite a few of the books left on the shelves hadn’t moved since we did back in 2012. Once again, it was time to weed.

I let my principal know that our collection would be needing some funding to help bring it up to a higher standard. He knows that circulation is up — he’s seen the data shown above — but he wanted a more formal assessment of our collection and a plan for moving forward.

First I weeded. And weeded. And weeded. Nonfiction — easy. Fiction — a little more painful and personal. If a book hadn’t circulated in over three years (unless I knew it had potential tie in to curriculum, special interest, etc.), was in poor condition, or had otherwise outdated information, it was out. I weeded just over 1,000 books, bringing our total collection copy count to 8,614 after weeding. Our collection is very small compared to our student population (just at 1,000 students), but I don’t see the point in having books that aren’t being read.

After the weeding was complete, I started to look at my numbers. I uploaded our collection info in MackinÂ for collection analysis. Since we don’t use Dewey, this gets a little iffy and the “recommended” numbers don’t necessarily match up to my categories. I took that analysis and made the “recommended” column to the best of my ability. The other columns show what we have — copy count for each category, percent of circulation, circulation numbers, and the that category makes up of total circulations. I was able to gather this information from a Collection Circulation Report (Summary Only) and a Collection Statistics Summary Report in Destiny.

Then, I looked more closely at the sections that had a higher percent of circulation than the percent it made up of the collection. These are the sections that would be the main focus for new purchases. I looked at the average of what I usually spend on nonfiction and fiction books when ordering. I also based our need on having 10 books per student — which would bring our collection to 10,000. These numbers aren’t exact, but an estimate so I could have conversation with my principal about finding funds to help us improve our collection.Â

My principal was impressed with the data (speaking his language makes a difference) and we are working on finding funds to help us fill the gaps in our collection. I’ve been working on lists, building one for each category so I can look more closely at what is being spent on the different genre sections. I’m excited about the potential to grow and expand our collection this year!

Also, through the process of weeding and assessing the collections, I did a little re-arranging of genre category locations in the library. I moved some books to different genres. I reorganized some of the nonfiction sections and the graphic novels. And I finally decided to make a permanent Humor genre in fiction and pulled books from a number of categories to build it.

It’s been a busy start to the year, but a good one!

Battle of the Books

March 25, 2015September 8, 2015 - librariantiff 11 Comments

Today we hosted the first Battle of the Books at CMS! I’m beyond pleasedÂ with the way the event turned out and know this is going to become a favorite tradition at our school. I have to give a HUGE shout out to Sherry GickÂ who has been talking about her Battle of the Books for years, which inspired me to bring this awesome idea to CMS. Sherry and Megan Scott gave an ISTE Librarians Network Webinar on the Battle of the Books, which I recommend watching if you’re considering hostingÂ this at your school.

I started advertising for this event back in November. Students could get together teams of up to 10 students for the competition, then find a teacher to serve as their sponsor. I used funds from our book fair to purchase sets of the 10 titles for each team. A total of 13 teams signed up for the competition and they received their books in early December. Many of our team sponsors set up Schoology groups for their team members to discuss the books on the list. Students traded the books with team members to read. Some teams were very ambitious and tried to get as many students on their team to read as many books as possible — there were a number of students who read all 10 titles! Other teams assigned team members to be an expert on two or three titles. The winning team actually met after school several times to discuss the books and come up with their strategy…and clearly it paid off!

Teams received this list with information and guidelines about a month before the competition:

Each team was allowed one computer for responding toÂ the Kahoot and Socrative questions. I told them up front that if any monitoring teachers saw them with other windows/tabs open OR they had any of the books in sight, they would be disqualified from that round. We didn’t have any problems.

Rounds 1 and 4 were Kahoot rounds — 20 multiple choice questions where speed and accuracy helped them earn points. Points were awarded based on final ranking after the round. The team in first place got 10 points, all the wayÂ on down to just one point. You can check out the Round 1 Kahoot here. The Kahoot rounds were so much fun and brought a lot of energy to the competition.

Rounds 2 and 5 were Socrative rounds — short answer questions with a 90 second time limit to answer. I had this set up with 20 questions for each round. After round two took FOREVER and the students got a little restless, I cut down the questions for round five to just 10 questions. We had some issues with groups getting kicked out of the Socrative room, so I’m not sure that this is what we would use next time. However, it was nice to be able to check the short answer questions after they were populated in the spreadsheet, so there was some benefit to using Socrative. These were my questions for Round 2:

Round 3 was a puzzle. Teams had to match the title, author, and main character(s) from each of the 10 books in 5 minutes. We cut out each piece individually and put them in an envelope. Each team received an envelope, paper grid, and glue stick. Teams earnedÂ a point for every title/author/main character that was matched correctly.

I can’t express my excitement enough over the success of our Battle of the Books! With the help of my awesome administration and super supportive coworkers, things went even better than I hoped. Next year, I plan to move this event to the fall semester and maybe host the battle after school. I’ve already heard talk of recruiting and strategizing for next year’s teams. In the words of a student who sent me a message on Schoology after the battle…It was EPIC!

Go to Recommendations: Action/Adventure

September 12, 2014September 8, 2015 - librariantiff 3 Comments

One of the best things about being a librarian is connecting students with the right books. I feel like middle school is the time where kids really become life-long readers. They discover their reading preferences and start to read books with more meat to them. I love having our library arranged by genre, I find that students are able to browse the library and find books that are of interest to them very easily. Within each section, I have my go to recommendations that I find myself constantly suggesting to students. I thought I would share mine, and hope that you’ll leave me comments with any others that you love to recommend!

I love to recommend any books from the I Survived seriesÂ by Lauren Tarshisto reluctant readers who are looking for a fast-paced read that isn’t intimidating. I’m so excited to see that this series is continuing to grow!

Gordon Korman has several great action/adventure series, including The Island Trilogy, The Dive Trilogy, and The Everest Trilogy. Similar to the I Survived, these short books are a great way to get reluctant readers to pick up a novel.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen is one of those tried and true recommendations. Living in south Louisiana, so many of my students love to hunt and fish, so they really get into an outdoors adventure story.

Â Â Other outdoor adventure recommendations include Wild Life by Cynthia DeFelice, The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong, and Alabama Moon by Watt Key. I have multiple copies of all of these titles, and they stay checked out all year long.

The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz are great action-packedÂ kid spy books that my students devour. Middle school students LOVE a series!

For my action/adventure readers that I think would also be interested in reading science fiction/fantasy, I recommend The Limit by Kristen Landon and The Maximum Ride series by James Patterson.

Â Â

For my more mature readers who areÂ into action and adventure, I love to recommend Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick and Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman. I thought both of these books were super fun, fast-paced reads!

What books do you find yourself constantly recommending to students who are hunting for an action/adventure read?

Book Speed Dating

October 7, 2013September 8, 2015 - librariantiff 7 Comments

One of the most powerful things I can do for my students is work to promote reading for fun and helping students find books that they will enjoy. I feel like middle school is one of those key times in life where many students either take the path to become a life-long reader…or not. So I try to do as much as possible to talk to my students about what they’re reading and help them find books that will get them hooked!

One activity that I’ve found to be extremely successful this year is a round of “Book Speed Dating.” I know that this is an activity that many librarians have done for years…it’s tried and true for a reason!

Here’s how I’ve put together this activity:

I pulled books that I frequently recommend from 7 different genres and put them in boxes at each of my 7 tables. It exposes readers to new genres that they may not seek out on their own.
Students come in and decide on a ranking system they’ll use to rank the books they preview (scale of 1-10, five star ratings, etc.).
I set a timer (like the one projected on the screen) for five minutes. For the first 30 seconds, they can peruse the books in the box at their table and select a book. Then, they spend 4 minutes reading the book to see if it hooks them. With 30 seconds remaining, they make note of the title of the book and give it a ranking.
If at any time they find a book they want to check out, they can hold on to that book. All other books go back in the box, we rotate the boxes, and repeat this activity 4-5 times.

I always get great feedback from teachers and students with this activity…they love it! By the final round, about half of the students will typically have a book that they want to check out. And ALL of the students have spent some time with a book from a genre that’s outside of their typical reading comfort zone.

I did this several weeks ago with my 8th graders, and this week the 6th graders are having their turn. I especially like that I can customize the boxes for the classes/grades that I have visiting. And I LOVE that lots of book replenishing is needed after each class!

Do you do something similar to this? What other tried and true activities do you use for the love of reading?

Cavalier House Books Book Fair!

May 11, 2013September 8, 2015 - librariantiff 1 Comment

One thing that I wanted to do this year to promote reading over the summer was to hold a book fair at the end of the year. I had my annual book fair back in the fall, so I wanted to take this opportunity to try something different. The librarians at our high school have been using a local independent book store for several years now to host their book fair, so I was excited to finally give them a try!

I was blown away by this AWESOME book fair hosted by Cavalier House Books! I’m telling you, this was the BEST book fair I have ever seen!! The folks at Cavalier House Books make this fair a dream — they set up and tear down the fair! AND they have someone there during the entire fair to do all of the actual book selling! I had such a great time spending the week with John Cavalier, who is so obviously passionate about what he does and full of awesome ideas to keep growing his business. He was great interacting with the kids, looking up books they were interested, and making orders on things he didn’t currently have available to bring in from the store. No lame restock orders that never come in time or come in partially full here, baby!

The selection that was made available to my students at this fair absolutely blew us all away. So many students and teachers walked in and IMMEDIATELY commented on how much better this fair was than any we’ve had in the past. There were books available for every type of reader, something to get everyone excited!

I cannot say enough good things about our CHB Book Fair! I am now a loyal customer for life and look forward to some of the great things that can come from building a relationship with such an awesome local indie book store! And check out these pictures of the fair…they will speak for themselves!

You’re jealous, right? 🙂

Spring Break Reading!

April 1, 2013September 8, 2015 - librariantiff 2 Comments

Today is my last day of Spring Break and it’s time I force myself back into reality. I’ve been soaking up some sun and doing LOTS of reading. Here’s where I spent my week on the beautiful Gulf coast:

There are lots of productive things that should have worked on ::COUGH COUGH National Board Reflections::, but I opted to read instead. So today will be my day of responsibility — grocery shopping, laundry, and writing (okay, so I’m also thinking about going to see The Host…)

In case anyone is curious about what I read over break, here’s a quick run-down:

This book was very Australian. I guess I’ve never really read anything Australian before? It was just okay for me. Typically when I read, I think of a person who would LOVE that particular book. No one came to mind for this one.

I think this was my favorite read of the break! I definitely have a book crush on Jase! It’s definitely an Upper Grades read (as are most of the books I read this week). It’s a great summery love story. The author did a great job of portraying life with a big, loud family, and you can’t help but fall in love with the Garretts — especially little brother George!

I love Lauren Barnholdt! She’s written some middle grade novels, but of course I love her YA stuff more. One Night That Changes Everything is my favorite of hers. This is a good one too, although I think my BFF liked this one better than I did as she LOVES a road trip story.

I was obsessed with the first book in this series, The Unwanteds, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one! It was good, but I will admit that I put it down and came back to it later. And it left me just kind of hanging…which series like to do, I suppose. I’m recommending this series to my fantasy readers quite often.

This is a beautifully written novel! I love that Gayle Forman’s books don’t fit the typical girly YA formula. Lots of Shakespeare weaved into this story, which is fab. And lots of European travel, which I’m dying to do! But this is another one that just left me hanging…although I’m much more anxious to get my hands on the next book of this series!

I cannot wait to get this book into the hands of some of my boys! I think that this will appeal not only to kids who love Hatchet, but also to those who enjoyed The Juvie Three, which I recommend all the time! I’m always excited when I get something new to add to my frequently recommended list, and this is one for sure!

Wow, talk about some messed up situations. This book has high drama written all over it. And not lame girly YA drama. Serious messed up family drama. And this is DEFINITELY a YA novel, no middle grades business going on here. I eyed this for a while before I bought it, but the Simone Elkeles blurb on the cover is what kept me coming back. So I finally bought it, read it, thoroughly enjoyed it.

I found this one at BAM on the sale shelf (I love a BAM sale!), and picked it up because I loved How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr. This one was a quick read and good to go on the library shelf, which made me happy. There were tons of very dramatic things going on in this story, but I felt like it still fell a little flat for me. I’m anxious to give this to one of my avid readers and see how they feel about it.

Yikes! This book was something else! When I first started it, I was thinking it was feeling a bit Summer I Turned Pretty but from a boy’s perspective. Not so much. I think I liked it, despite the fact that it’s one messed up story, disturbing, graphic, etc.

I am a reality TV fanatic. I still watch Real World from time to time and also watch every version of Real Housewives that’s on the air. So this book definitely appealed to me! As I said before, I love Lauren Barnholdt, especially her YA novels, so I really enjoyed this one. Predictable? Sure. Fun? Absolutely!

Throughout my novels, I read a bit of poetry as well, as it was one of the books I needed to finish my Spring Book Challenge (which I did finish this week!). I love Billy Collins and this one was available on Overdrive through my public library, so I took my time and enjoyed this one over the course of the week.

And now, it’s time for me to put the obsessive reading away so I can be productive and work through my many to-do lists. Lots of exciting things coming up as this school year goes into the final stretch! Including…

Join my awesome friend Nick Provenzano and I next Monday for our TL Virtual Cafe webinar — The Connected Concierge!

Mighty Little Librarian

Tiffany Whitehead's Blog

Middle Grade Books

Interacting with Nonfiction Text

Collection Development

Go to Recommendations: Action/Adventure

Spring Break Reading!